‘Amend Police Act to give leadership specific tenure’
The Director of the Transformation Programme of the Ghana Police Service, Chief Superintendent of Police (C/Supt), Dr Benjamin Agordzo, has called on the government to amend the Police Act to give the leadership of the Ghana Police Service a specific tenure of office.
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In a presentation at the first edition of Reflection on Security Series on the topic, “Examining the post-election environment in Ghana,” held in Accra, Dr Agordzo said if the leadership of the Ghana Police Service, such as the Inspector General of Police (IGP), had a specific tenure of office and was not appointed by the government of the day, the work and loyalty of the IGP would be to serve the nation and not a particular political party.
“The IGP must be appointed on a fixed term and must be approved by Parliament, so as to be given the full powers to work without any political interference,” he stressed.
Dr Agordzo added that the current constitutional arrangement for the appointment and removal of the police leadership did not embolden police chiefs to act impartially. He contended that that was wrong because the service had to be impartial and completely insulated from all kinds of interferences, adding that it implied embarking on robust constitutional reforms.
“Left to me alone, the position would be vacant for people to apply, just like it is in other parts of the world. The effect of such an arrangement is that the police institution is professionally developed and without any political interference,” he said.
Vigilante groups
On post-election violence, Dr Agordzo took a swipe at the various political vigilante groups using examples of the recent happenings in the country - a vigilante group attacking police officers and a court of law.
“The post-election assault on political opponents and appointees of the new government, seizure of public property, among others, are to say the least, unfortunate. Indeed, the violence, especially those perpetrated by the Delta Force, downgraded Ghana in the eyes of the international community,” he said.
Dr Agordzo said the activities of political vigilante groups had become a threat to national security and underscored the need for a national discourse to find a solution to the problem.
“This is because such groups have either worked for such parties to win elections or their support is required for the parties to win future elections,” he noted.
Transitional process
For his part, the Deputy Director of the Centre for Democratic Development (CDD), Dr Franklin Oduro, also observed that although the transitional process was peaceful, the late submission of handover notes and how it affected the transition process, coupled with the limited resources of the Presidential Estate Unit (PEU) and its impact on the Administrator-General’s effectiveness in carrying out his statutory functions, constituted a setback in the transition.